Login

***devin*** · 07-05-2013, 08:16 AM

Here's my ridiculous pitch: a video game starring a congenitally blind protagonist living in a world where dogs are rare status symbols which grant their masters magical powers, eventually corrupting them. The world is split into two levels, the upper is a hodgepodge of lower-class neighborhoods built into the canopy of trees that reach miles high. The lower is an upper-class suburban sprawl, populated by wealthy, demonic dog owners and their extravagant mansions. Early in the game, the protagonist stumbles (literally) upon a loose dog which restores his sight by letting him see through the dog's eyes. He then falls into a bad crowd of upper level kids who make profit from stealing dogs from the lower level residents and selling them on the black market.

The gameplay then consists of travelling to the lower level from the hub of the upper level and participating in heists to steal high value dogs, with seperate mansions serving as levels leading up to a boss fight. The mansions themselves would be particularly expansive in a way that doesn't make literal sense (seperate climates within one house) and would consist mainly of exploration, puzzles, and the avoidance of traps set by the owner. I figure that the dog's sight could serve as an interesting gameplay mechanic; being able to explore tight areas/see around corners using the dog's field of vision at the expense of personal safety and awareness. After you progress through enough levels and take enough dogs back up to the top, the lower level starts to unravel, things start to become surreal, and you start to discover the origins of the game's reality.

I see this mainly as a 3rd-person 3D game but I think it could work as a 2D puzzle game given imaginary budgetary constraints, haha.

I'll start with some older drawings that I did.

Here's the very very old and mostly irrelevant sketch that served as the original inspiration:

[Image: dognapper2.jpg]

Here's a sketch of the main character in an upper level corridor that I did a few months ago:

[Image: seeingeyedog.jpg]

I also did a portrait of him from the same time that I threw some text on for the poster above,
I'm going to go back and design his full costume.

-----

Here's some of the process I went through when designing the game's first boss, Adelaide.
I'm thinking that her mansion has a sort of victorian theme, complete with outdoor gardens.
I sketched out this portrait first:

[Image: boss1portraityellow.jpg]

I ended up not liking the lizardy vibe for the face so I ditched it, and I came up with this design:

[Image: adelaide.jpg]

I'm thinking that the lower and upper levels would have starkly contrasting color schemes, with the lower being very bright, perpetually sunny, and consiting of deep yellows, greens, and violets, while the upper level environments and characters would mostly be desaturated and monochromatic with some highly saturated accents.

Here's my initial sketch for the second boss, Ruth, whose mansion and level would be art deco themed and have interconnected halls of mirrors:

[Image: ruthsketch.jpg]

I'd like the dogs to somehow reflect the personality of its owner too, like they influenced each other.

Lot's of work to do on this one! I want to design a lot more bosses and their mansions and draw some details of both levels of the world. Of course there would also be a mysterious figure who only exists in the path between the two worlds, offering esoteric bits of information on your current target. Let me know what you guys think of this stuff! I'm excited Insane, ecstatic